ed. of 1688, lib. vii, tit. iii, quaest.  VI).  In modern times it is occasionally practiced, without any theory, and is always appreciated by the woman, while it appears to have no bad effect on the man.  In such a case it will happen that the act of coitus may last for an hour and a quarter or even longer, the maximum of the woman’s pleasure not being reached until three-quarters of an hour have passed; during this period the woman will experience orgasm some four or five times, the man only at the end.  It may occasionally happen that a little later the woman again experiences desire, and intercourse begins afresh in the same way.  But after that she is satisfied, and there is no recurrence of desire.

It may be desirable at this point to refer briefly to the chief variations in the method of effecting coitus in their relationship to the art of love and the attainment of adequate and satisfying detumescence.

The primary and essential characteristic of the specifically human method of coitus is the fact that it takes place face to face.  The fact that in what is usually considered the typically normal method of coitus the woman lies supine and the man above her is secondary.  Psychically, this front-to-front attitude represents a great advance over the quadrupedal method.  The two partners reveal to each other the most important, the most beautiful, the most expressive sides of themselves, and thus multiply the mutual pleasure and harmony of the intimate act of union.  Moreover, this face-to-face attitude possesses a great significance, in the fact that it is the outward sign that the human couple has outgrown the animal sexual attitude of the hunter seizing his prey in the act of flight, and content to enjoy it in that attitude, from behind.  The human male may be said to retain the same attitude, but the female has turned round; she has faced her partner and approached him, and so symbolizes her deliberate consent to the act of union.

The human variations in the exercise of coitus, both individual and national, are, however, extremely numerous.  “To be quite frank,” says Fuerbringer (Senator and Kaminer, Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage, vol. i, p. 213), “I can hardly think of any combination which does not figure among my case-notes as having been practiced by my patients.”  We must not too hastily conclude that such variations are due to vicious training.  That is far from being the case.  They often occur naturally and spontaneously.  Freud has properly pointed out (in the second series of his Beitraege zur Neurosenlehre, “Bruchstueck” etc.) that we must not be too shocked even when the idea of fellatio spontaneously presents itself to a woman, for that idea has a harmless origin in the resemblance between the penis and the nipple.  Similarly, it may be added, the desire for cunnilinctus, which seems to be much more often latently present